5 Things You Need to Know Before Buying a Subaru WRX or STI

so you've probably clicked on this video for one of a few reasons hey I'm guessing you're looking at buying a WRX and STI a Forester Legacy an Outback a Tribeca I don't know what you're trying to buy but I'm guessing you're trying to buy Subarus B maybe you're just curious on what I have to say see maybe you're bored and you're just watching YouTube or D maybe this just autoplay and you're sitting there eating some popcorn or some some KFC or so I don't know what you're doing but anyways I get asked this question all of the time so I figured it'd be easier just to make one comprehensive list condense it all down into one video for the top five things that you need to understand watch out for and look for when purchasing one of these cars so the first thing I'm gonna say is just State the obvious obviously Subarus are flat four horizontally opposed engines and they're primarily all all-wheel drive you don't know what a flat four is it's literally you can barely even see that engine it's literally a flat engine the Pistons go at each other like they're trying to fight each other and eject a rod out of the top of the block because apparently that's what they like to do talk about a few misconceptions that we'll jump into the five things a supers are probably going to be one of the most unreliable cars you ever own I mean yes and no if we're being honest unreliability of Subarus comes from the improper modification the improper care of the vehicle Subaru is a very temperamental cars let's just we'll say that right off the bat these things can they can hurt your feelings and your wallet really quickly if you don't know how to take care of them misconception number two head gasket Subaru's blow head gaskets left and right that's also not true early model naturally aspirated 2.5 liters that came in like Foresters and prezzas things like that yes they did they had very bad head gasket problems and that was a that was an issue with Subaru that was a Subaru problem because Subaru decided to use non-mls head gaskets if you don't know what an MLs head gasket is it's a multi-layered steelhead gasket so the head gasket issue it was a big problem I am not denying that but it was a problem with naturally aspirated engines so now we got some of just the basic misconceptions out of the way that's actually get into these five things number one if you were looking at purchasing a WRX horn STI buy one literally as stock as possible if not 100 bone stock if you can find one dude it's going to be the biggest piece of advice I can give you right now I'd say with one exception to that unless the car is built by a very reputable shop and tuned by a very reputable show jobs stay away from literally every modified Subaru for the barrier of entry into these cars is very affordable now and with them being so affordable and people selling them what people typically do to get some money back off of these cars before they sell them is they'll do like a half-assed part out on it and when I mean a half-assed part out on it I mean they only remove some of the parts they'll remove like their access port or their tuning device they'll leave some of the engine components on there maybe a downpipe fuel injectors things of that nature and they'll either trade in the car or this private sell a car to somebody now when that happens I mentioned this earlier these are going to be one of the most temperamental cars that you go to modify and own with them being temperamental when you have things like bigger injectors a bigger downpipe even an intake without a tune on there it'll throw off the math scaling it'll throw off AFR Corrections it'll throw so many things off to where maybe you're the person that just bought a used WX or STI and things are kind of acting a little bit strange and then motor blows up and then you're pissed off you're pissed off at the dude and Soldier the car you're pissed off at the car pissed off the Subaru you hate this brand you hate this car you don't want anything to do with it you want to go back to your Honda Civic or your LS I don't blame you stay away from the modified ones literally as much as possible in stock form these things are reliable they are solid they need just the normal maintenance intervals at 20 40 60 80 100 000 miles and so on so forth to keep them going on the road sometimes they're just basic oil changes in like a cabin filter or something like that now the other big thing with the use WX is in the STIs that I see out there and this happens very frequently as well as people will go down the path of improperly modifying one of these cars and there is there is a very proper way to modify one of these in a very improper way to modify one when one does blow up what people often do is they will buy a used JDM Engine now something that is different between Japan and the United States when it comes to the wrxs and the sdis is Japan primarily use two liters ej20x ej20y ej205 207 Etc in the United States we have the 205 in the early model wrx's but all the STIs are 2.5 liters what lot of people will do is they will buy these cheap used ej20x's wise 205s and whatnot and they'll swap them into their wx's or their sdis in the states just to be able to get a cheap motor back in there so they can get out from under the car and sell it now if you look right here in the engine it's going to site either ej20 or ej25 if your car originally came with an ej25 make sure that there is an ej25 in that car if it originally came with an ej25 and it has an ej20 I don't care how good that car looks unless you're specifically buying a built 2 liter stay away from it that dude's got a real crackle tune on his Audi just like any other car Subarus do have common issues and problems so I'm gonna give you the the run-of-the-mill for everything I can think of on this list now the Subaru is being a flat engine the exhaust manifold sits under the car and then you have something called an up pipe that goes from the exhaust manifold up to the turbo now those up pipes when they start to get old the attack welds or the spot welds that hold the heat shields in place around the stock up pipe will crack over time the welds will break and then you're gonna have a nasty rattle coming from the passenger side of the engine bay they salt the roads near you and you're looking at buying any any Subaru from like right now I'd say 2016 back go ahead get that thing up on a lift and pull out the rear fender arches Subarus like to rust in salty areas on the rear fender arches and I'm not just talking about some surface dress I'm saying they're going to rust right through there you're gonna have a nice watermelon sized hole in your back seat that you can see the road in your tire down on super steering racks love to leak I don't I don't know why they just they love to leak my WRX here its steering rack was leaking at like 60 000 miles or like 70 000 miles or something like that I don't even know if it's the original rack I swapped it to an STI steering rack for a little bit better turning ratio even I've seen steering racks fail as early as like 6 000 miles for some reason these steering racks just love to pee fluid couldn't tell you why but it's one of the more common problems or super paint is very soft it's probably the softest paint ever you can see mine right here look I just I just peeled off a piece of my paint super paint is extremely soft it gets Rock chips easily it'll crack easily if you're rolling your fenders on a Subaru and you don't apply heat and you don't do it properly you're gonna crack all the paint up in that area on top of that Subaru paint will fade on plastic painted Parts such as bumpers hood scoops rear bumpers mirrors door handles everything like that wheel bearings on 2004 STIs and 5x100 model year wrx's the wheel bearings suck they got a little bit better in 08 from the O2 to 07 wrx's they improve them a little bit with more bolt-in style like wheel bearing but if you have the press and style wheel bearings be prepared those things fail quite often leaky valve covers you're Fighting Gravity on this one and you're not going to win all Subaru valve covers will leak eventually over time I personally like to put a little bit of three Bond on the gasket before I put it onto the cylinder head both right here on both sides especially on the passenger side where your up piping your turbo is burning oil supers like to burn oil all right it's just a fact it's a turbocharged four-cylinder car it likes to burn oil it's going to burn oil the best way to resolve this problem uh air oil separators I have one on my I I literally have one on all of my Subarus either an air oil separator or catch can if you get a catch can remember to drain it or empty it every x amount of Miles depending on how much oil your car is burning but it's not uncommon to see a little bit of blue smoke with these cars if it's an excessive keep in mind an excessive amount is totally different white smoke probably means it's got either turbo going bad or head gasket problems which I'm not saying these cars are immune to head gasket problems they can still definitely have them they still definitely get them they're just not as common as people think they are if you're specifically buying a WRX one that comes with a five speed which is going to be 2002 to 2014 be prepared for one of the worst feeling Trends in my opinion one of the worst Transmissions ever Subaru significantly dropped the ball on the WRX transmission reverse is all you're always going to just hate reverse in your five speed it's going to sound like it's grinding sometimes it's not going to feel like it wants to go on gear the five speeds are also very brittle if you're looking to try to make any type of Power with them they just it's just not it's not all there the six speeds on the other hand we have a 2018 SDI six-speed and my WRX here fantastic transmission one of my favorites out there but the wrs five speeds just be prepared they're a little brittle splint overflow tank not your expansion tank that you would normally have over there but your actual overflow tank if your overflow tank continuously starts to get low it's uh it's a cause of a couple things a it could be the head gasket leaking coolant okay you got me there maybe your head gasket's leaking and it's it's pushing some coolant into the combustion chamber and it's burning it you'd see white smoke coming out of the exhaust on that sometimes and this is when it gets fun uh you'll see oil in your coolant overflow tank which that one actually is a side of head gasket failure um you know both of the I'm really not defending the whole head gasket thing here I promise it's not I've had like 40 of these things I've never had a head gasket problem number three if you are going to buy one that is modified please for the love of God spend the extra money on a clean example of one that is properly built like I said before it will save you so much heartache down the road that you will be so thankful that you spent the extra five thousand dollars on one that has 15 000 less miles properly built properly cared for these cars get expensive quick when they are improperly maintained and improperly built it needs a little bit extra attention other than something like a Honda Toyota something along those lines okay but we love them if you're going to modify one of these cards listen to me closely there is a recipe on how to build these wrx's and STIs has been around for like 20 22 years now in the United States people have gone through the trials they've gone through the tribulations of learning how to build these things what works what doesn't work if you want X Y or Z amounts of horsepower there are literally lists of Parts you can get that will get you to those power goals I've made a video you can click right there there's a video on it that'll teach you how to get to a 300 350 400 450 and 500 wheel horsepower on one of these things just don't try to reinvent the wheel there's absolutely no need to you'll have a far better experience with the car and I'm just talking about the performance aspects of it like engine modification like that if you want to make you can make it look however you want but for engine modification just follow the recipes there's things like nasiak there's things like my channel there's things like Facebook groups now the last big point that I want to point out if you are looking at getting into a Subaru and you're looking at buying one is understand that these cars are not for everybody they're if you think you want a Subaru let me run through a couple things that may just put it into perspective a little bit more for you they're fantastic cards don't get me wrong I absolutely love these things there's a reason why I've owned 40 of them if you are purchasing a Subaru and you have expectations of you're gonna make a lot of power relatively affordable let me stop you right there because the these car yes you can you can make power on them mice my WRX makes 730 wheel horsepower on E85 with the 6466 it's not cheap to do a setup like this if somebody were to cut copy and paste this build I realistically want to say they'd be looking at about 25 to 30 000 for 700 real horsepower it's just it's not a platform you're gonna come into with the expectation of making power easily for cheap money you can get 300 350 wheel horsepower relative for a decent budget I'd say and if you're not looking to make a ton of power great these cars are fun they're great daily drivers they take the modifications very well when done properly but just don't have the expectation that you're going to make a ton of power just stupid cheap if you're looking at fuel efficiency this is not scar for you even in stock for it fuel mileage sucks I think you get like 16 17 miles per gallon on the freeway something that is overlooked quite often uh because Subarus are all-wheel drive they are already very temperamental cars you will piss off the all-wheel drive system very very quickly if you do have mismatched tires on your cars you can destroy differentials you will destroy them quite quickly if you're running like mismatched tires uh tread wear sizes Brands they're if you get a flat it sucks but you're more than likely going to have to replace all four if your tires have any type of decent wear on them if you know Subaru if you know the roundabout Subarus you know what you're looking for but for those that are new to the platform new to looking getting into one of these they're honestly they're fantastic cars there's a reason I've had 40 plus of them they they have a unique Driving Experience to them that you cannot replicate with another brand or manufacturer the community standing behind these things is insane the aftermarket support for wrxs and STIs is out of this world but I just don't want to see anyone get burned and have negative experiences with the cars they're a little bit different they're not scary to work on though I promise Subarus are honestly one of the easiest cars to work on I understand when you're looking at one that's all stock you got hoses going everywhere you have no idea what's happening you've got Jim Bob down in the corner playing with some crossover lines you've got Henry down by the valve cover plane with some spark plugs you don't know what the hell's happening but it's a disco party in there and you're just trying to find your way over to the turbo I get it it can look scary but I promise once you start getting into these and you start taking them apart supers are gonna be one of the easiest cars you ever work on but I hope this helps answer some of your guys's questions when it comes to buying one of these used if you have any if I miss if I missed anything for all my fellow Subaru people out there please feel free to throw down in the comments this video is intended to help people who are going out and looking to buy one of these please if you need to take that list of common problems that I made I'll put it down in the video description below take that list with you when going to look at it used one be like okay check this off check this off check this off and make sure everything also make sure you're buying actually you can buy a rebuild Title One you know you buy whatever one you want but but these guidelines should help you buy one that is going to minimize the most negative experience you could possibly have with one of these cars but with that that's all I've got for you guys on this one so if this video helped you if you're looking at buying one if you just found it entertaining if you just wanted to see what I said or if you just wanted to look at my beautiful face hit that like button if you're not already subscribed to the channel and you want to be able to put in one of these Corners in audio on quite yet but with that I will catch you guys in the next one so poos out homies [Music]

Channel: Smeedia

Views: 127,279

Keywords: Subaru, Subaru WRX, Subaru WRX STI, JDM Subaru WRX, Subaru BRZ, Scion FRS, Toyota GT86, STI, WRX STI, JDM STI, Subaru Youtuber, Smeedia, Subaru Youtube Channel, Tanner Smith, Smedia, Subaru STI Channel, Subaru STI Videos, subaru crosstrek, subaru reliability, subaru review, What to look for when buying a subaru, Used car, Subaru Common Problems, Smeedia Subaru issues, what to look for when buying a used car, Smeedia used car, Used Subaru

Id: 5JDJQc_QQeM

Length: 14min 31sec (871 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 22 2023